Indo-Iranian languages

Indo-Iranian languages, group of languages constituting the easternmost major branch of the Indo-European family of languages; only the Tocharian languages are found farther east. Scholarly consensus holds that the Indo-Iranian languages include the Iranian and Indo-Aryan (Indic) language groups. Some scholars suggest that the Nūristānī and Bangani languages belong in the Indo-Iranian group as well.

The Indo-Iranian languages have been used in both administrative and literary contexts. Old Persian was the administrative language of the early Achaemenian dynasty, dating from the 6th century bce, and an eastern Middle Indo-Aryan dialect was the language of the chancellery of the Mauryan emperor Aśoka in the Indian subcontinent in the mid-3rd century bce. The Indo-Iranian languages have also been used in the literature of some of the world’s great religions: Indo-Aryan for Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Sikhism and Iranian for Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism. The oldest Zoroastrian texts are in dialects included under the name Avestan. Commerce, conquest, and religion spread the influence of these languages. Indo-Aryan languages, for example, penetrated deep into Southeast Asia; lexical borrowings in Indonesia, Thailand, and other areas and Sanskrit texts in Cambodia reflect this influence.

Origins

The original location of the Indo-Iranian group was probably to the north of modern Afghanistan, east of the Caspian Sea, in the area that is now Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan, where Iranian languages are still spoken. From there, some Iranians migrated to the south and west, the Indo-Aryans to the south and east. From geographical references in the earliest Indo-Aryan literary document, the Ṛigveda (“The Veda Composed in Verses,” c. 1500 bce), it is clear that the earliest settlement of Indo-Aryans was in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent. Migration did not take place at once. It is now generally accepted that there were doubtless a series of migrations, although the now-discredited view that an Indo-Aryan invasion took place was once seriously entertained. The date of entry of the Indo-Aryans into the Indian subcontinent cannot be determined precisely, though the beginning of the 2nd millennium bce is plausible and generally accepted.

There is controversy concerning the precise position of the language of the Indo-Iranian family first attested in Middle Eastern texts of about 1450–1350 bce. Some borrowed words and proper names appearing in these Hittite-Hurrian documents have been interpreted variously as belonging to Indo-Iranian, to an Indic subgroup of Indo-Iranian that had not yet fully split, or to Indo-Aryan proper. For example, the number word aika- ‘one’ has been considered to indicate that the language in question was Indo-Aryan, since the Iranian term is aiva- (Avestan aēuua-/aēuuā-) in contrast to Sanskrit eka-, although the Sanskrit particle eva ‘only, indeed,’ comparable to Avestan aēuua-/aēuuā- ‘indeed,’ can be considered to reflect the existence in earliest Indo-Aryan of both eka- and eva- for ‘one.’ Consensus has yet to be reached on this issue, although a majority of authorities hold that the language in question represents an early variety of Old Indo-Aryan, prior to changes such as the replacement of *źh by h (e.g., *źh > jh > h).

Also awaiting further research is the identification of the Harappan peoples of the Indus Valley and other sites in the subcontinent, whose writing has not yet been satisfactorily deciphered despite decades of effort. A definitive solution to this problem could possibly answer the question of whether Indo-Aryans encountered these people or whether Harappan civilization had passed by the time the Indo-Aryans arrived on the subcontinent, although scholars now generally agree that the Indus Valley civilization’s decline was not due to any Indo-Aryan invasion. Whatever may be the answers to the questions concerning the Middle Eastern texts and the Harappan peoples, the reasons for the split of the Indo-Aryans and Iranians are not known.

The above scenario assumes that the Indo-Aryans migrated into the Indian subcontinent. This is not, however, universally accepted. There are scholars, both Indian and non-Indian, who maintain that the Indo-Aryans originated in the subcontinent, whence they emigrated. Indeed, it has been argued that the earliest Indo-Aryan as represented in Vedic texts is tantamount to Proto-Indo-European. The issue is complex, and evidence that could be absolutely probative is largely lacking—there is no archaeological evidence that definitively establishes a migration of Indo-Aryans into the subcontinent, but there is equally no definitive archaeological evidence of Iranians and other Indo-European groups having emigrated from the subcontinent. Moreover, the textual evidence from Sanskrit sources that some have claimed demonstrates that Indo-Aryans retained memories of an earlier homeland from which they migrated into the Indian subcontinent is small and subject to serious doubt, as it serves to support this thesis only with considerable interpretational effort.

The linguistic evidence, on the other hand, is best reconciled with the thesis that the Indo-Aryans did indeed go to the subcontinent from an external homeland and that the early Vedic system is not equivalent to that of Proto-Indo-European. It is methodologically less plausible, for example, to assume that the Vedic vowel system, which contains a, ā, i, ī, u, ū, but no short e or o, is the system ancestral to that of Indo-European languages such as Greek and Latin, which do have short e and o. One would have to assume not only that a of the ancestral proto-language split into e and o under conditions difficult to specify but also that differences between different kinds of a vowels in Indo-Iranian account for the alternations between velars and palatals in these languages. It is methodologically simpler to assume that the late Proto-Indo-European system had vowels e, ē, o, ō, a, ā, and that these vowels merged in Indo-Iranian.

Conversely, the perfect of Sanskrit han ‘strike, kill’ (3rd sg. pres. indic. hanti, 3rd sg. fut. haniṣyati) has the velar -gh- in the root syllable of perfect forms such as ja-ghān-a (3rd sg.). The long -ā- in such forms reflects a development of Proto-Indo-European -o- in open syllables. Greek forms of the type lé-loip-e ‘left’ (3rd sg. pfct.) show e in the reduplicated syllable and -o- in the root syllable. Similarly, Sanskrit causatives such as sād-ay-a-ti ‘seats,’ from the base sad ‘sit’ (3rd sg. pres. indic. sīdati, 3rd sg. aor. asadat), show -ā- in open syllables. The comparable Germanic formation, seen in Gothicsatjan ‘seat,’ shows -a- as a regular development from Proto-Indo-European o.

In instances in which some Indo-European languages have a vowel a, Indo-Iranian has i as a reflex of Proto-Indo-European sounds called laryngeals—e.g., Greek patḗr ‘father,’ Sanskrit pitṛ- (nom. sing. pitā́), Avestan and Old Persian pitar-. After stems ending in short or long a, i, or u, an n generally occurs with the genitive (possessive) plural ending ām, reflecting an innovation modelled on stems ending in -n—e.g., Sanskrit martyānām ‘of mortals, men,’ Avestan masiiānąm, and Old Persian martiyānām.

In addition to several other similarities in their grammatical systems, Indo-Aryan and Iranian have significant vocabulary items in common—e.g., such religious terms as Sanskrit yajña- ‘rite of worship, sacrificial rite,’ Avestan yasna- ‘worship, act of worship, sacrifice’; and Sanskrit hotṛ-, Avestan zaotar- ‘a certain ritual officiant’; Sanskrit soma- and Avestan haoma-, which refer to a ritually important juice pressed from a plant; and names of divinities and mythological persons, such as Sanskrit mitra-, Avestan miθra- ‘Mithra.’ In addition, speakers of both language subgroups used comparable terms to refer to themselves as a people: Sanskrit ārya-, Avestan airiia-, Old Persian ariya- ‘Aryan.’

Divergent features

Although they have many similarities, the Indo-Aryan and Iranian language subgroups also differ from each other in a number of linguistic features. For example, Indo-Aryan has an i/īsound representing a Proto-Indo-European laryngeal sound not only in initial syllables but also, generally, in interior syllables, as in Sanskrit duhitṛ- ‘daughter’ (cf. Greek thugátēr). In Iranian, the original laryngeal is lost in this position, as in Avestan dugədar-, duγδdar-. Similarly, Sanskrit bravīti ‘speaks, says,’ vṛṇīte ‘chooses,’ but Avestan mraoiti, vərəṇtē. Iranian also has replaced Indo-Iranian aspirated voiced consonants (pronounced with a puff of breath, written h) with corresponding unaspirated consonants—e.g., Sanskrit gharma- ‘warmth,’ dhā ‘put, make,’ and bhṛ, ‘carry, bear’ but Avestan garəma- ‘warm’ and Avestan and Old Persian dā, bar. Further, Iranian changed stops such as p before certain consonants to spirants such as f: Sanskrit pra ‘forth,’ Avestan frā̆; Old Persian fra; Sanskrit putra- ‘son,’ Avestan puθra-, Old Persian pusa- (s represents a sound that is also transliterated as ç). In addition, h replaces s in Iranian except before nonnasal stops (produced by releasing the breath only through the mouth) and after i, u, r, vocalic r, and k; Avestan hapta- ‘seven,’ hauruua- ‘whole, Old Persian haruva- ‘whole,’ as opposed to Sanskrit sapta-, sarva-.

Iranian also has both xš and š sounds, resulting from different Proto-Indo-European consonant clusters, but Indo-Aryan has only kṣ—e.g., Avestan xšayeiti ‘has power, is capable,’ šaēiti ‘dwells’ but Sanskrit kṣayati, kṣeti. Iranian was also relatively conservative in retaining at an early period the diphthongsai and au, which were changed to simple vowels e and o in Indo-Aryan, and long diphthongs that were shortened to ai and au in Indo-Aryan. The earlier diphthongs are nevertheless reflected by certain Indo-Aryan alternations. Thus, prevocalic -ay- and -au- alternate with preconsonantal e and o; e.g., jay-a-ti (3rd sg. pres. indic.) ‘conquers, is victorious,’ stav-a- ‘praise’ and je-tum (infinitive) ‘to conquer,’ sto-tum ‘to praise.’ In addition, under conditions that determine the use of extralong vowels in final syllables of words, corresponding to vocative singulars in -e or -o such as agne ‘Agni!’ and vāyo ‘Vāyu!,’ one finds agnā3i and vāyā3u, with an extralong segment ā of three morae (indicated by the -3- in the phonetic spelling) followed by i and u.

Iranian differs from Indo-Aryan in grammatical features as well. The dative singular of -a- stems ends in -āi in Iranian—e.g., Avestan mašiiāi ‘mortal, man,’ Old Persian cartainaiy ‘to do’ (an original dative singular form of an action noun, functioning as infinitive of the verb). In Sanskrit the ending is extended with -a: martyāy-a. Avestan also retains the archaic pronoun forms yūš, yūžəm ‘you’ (nominative plural); in Indo-Aryan the -s- was replaced by -y- (yūyam) on the model of the first person plural—vayam ‘we’ (Avestan vaēm, Old Persian vayam). Further, Iranian has a third person pronoun di (accusative dim) that has no counterpart in Indo-Aryan.

On the basis of particular phonological developments, some scholars have recognized a distinct Nūristānī group consisting of Ashkun, Kati, Prasun, Waigali, and Tregami (all spoken in the Hindu Kush), in addition to the Indo-Aryan and Indo-Iranian groups. For example, Indo-Aryan regularly has ś as a reflex of Proto-Indo-European *j (e.g., Sanskrit keśa- ‘hair,’ śvan-/śun- ‘dog’), but Nūristānī languages show an affricate (ts, usually transcribed ċ) for this—e.g., Kati and Waigali kēċ ‘hair,’ Waigali and Tregami ċū̃ ‘dog.’ The situation is complicated by the fact that š also appears for *j—e.g., Waigali dōš ‘ten’ as opposed to Kati duċ (Sanskrit daśan-).

Other scholars, however, consider Nūristānī a subgroup of Indo-Aryan, and certain cultural facts are considered to support this view. For example, Ashkun imrā́, Kati ímro, Waigali yamrái, Prasun yumrā́ ‘name of a supreme deity (king Yama)’ are comparable to an Old Indo-Aryan compound of yama- ‘Yama (lord of the dead)’ and rājan- ‘king.’ A reasonable hypothesis to account for these and other linguistic facts is that the Nūristānī languages represent a group of early Indo-Aryan people that remained behind, separated from the main body of Indo-Aryan speakers that migrated into the area of the Punjab. However, as yet there is no scholarly consensus on this issue.

Quite recently, evidence was made available suggesting that Bangani, spoken in the area of Bangan—in westernmost Garwhal, Uttarakhand—is a centum language within the Indo-Aryan area. For example, Bangani dɔkɔ ‘ten’ and dɔkru ‘tear’ have k, as does a centum language like Latin (decem, lacrima), as opposed to Indo-Aryan, which has a spirant representing Proto-Indo-European *ḱ, as do other satem languages: note Sanskrit daśan-, aśru-. This claim is still being debated.

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